"My pace was slower then," he said softly, "although Father would lift me to his shoulders when speed was required or when he could not wait to get home to Mother. How she would smile when we came through the door! A reassuring smile for me and a cautionary smile for Father to have a care for my crutch. How I remember her Christmas smile that year. Her first thought that morning was for Father's comfort, her second for the Christmas goose, for its size and for the amount of stuffing and other good things needed to make up for the scarcity of its flesh. How she and Father laughed! Their eyes smiled above our heads with love and their own shining goodness! How rich I felt! How poor we were!" A soft smile transformed the weary countenance of the now sleeping young man.
Another face moved into his dream's inner view, the face of Ebenezer Scrooge, a hard, unyielding man of the City, known for his parsimony and cold-eyed scowl. Mr. Scrooge was seated with his father before the kitchen fire, exhibiting the kindest smile Tim had ever seen. Even the old man's eyes were smiling. How could this be so?
Tim recalled that his father lowered his face to the scarred kitchen table as Mr. Scrooge spoke and wept. How shocked they all were, as much by Mr. Scrooge's words and demeanor as by his father's tears. Father finally lifted a radiant face and called for Mother, and she wept as well. Forced by care and concern for his parents, he moved unsteadily forward to gaze into Mr. Scrooge's face and inquired with bitter wrath, "Why you great ogre, sir, what have you done to injure my mother and father? You leave them be!" he cried ferociously. He had drawn himself to his full height, scant though it was, fury evident in his small, outraged frame. He remembered, even now, the great gasp that escaped his father's lips and the shock on his mother's tear-stained face. But even more clearly did he recall the gentleness with which Mr. Scrooge gathered his fury-stiffened body onto his lap and held him close.
Looking Tim straight in the eye, he said gently, "Why, young Master Cratchit, you do me a great injustice. I am not the man whom you knew, and you are not now the man you will become. I speak to your parents of my gratitude for their loyalty and for the friendship that I would not allow them to foster. Many Christmases have come and gone with "Humbug" on my lips, but no more, by God's good grace. I have finally learned to hold Christmas in my heart and to be grateful for its joy throughout the year; and so I bring myself here in this season of fellowship to aid your father with his family, for to my great sorrow I have none of my own. Would you deny me the spirit of the season, the blessings of the very name of Christmas?" Scrooge had leaned forward to render his query eye-to-eye with the little bantam rooster of a lad, whose small head was cocked sideways in puzzled contemplation of Scrooge's words.
"What is it you would do here, sir?" Tim asked him, childishly thinking of sweets and boats and cricket bats, though the latter, of course, was of no use to him. He felt calm, his wrath instantly forgotten.
"Well, young Tim," said the imposing Mr. Scrooge most seriously, "I have consulted my solicitors. I would first see you well and strong, perhaps dancing a jig upon the occasion of our next Christmas festivities.We shall see to the finest doctors, and it's to Scotland you shall go if Sir Humphrey deems it necessary. There are many new treatments and many great advancements at the hospital in Edinburgh. We shall see to that and all the rest as well." Mr. Scrooge's eyes reflected a mist of tears behind his twinkle but looked solidly into his own. "Well, what say you to that, young sir?"
Small he was and straight he stood as he slipped off Scrooge's lap, Tim remembered, and also recollected how the pain in his leg and back had eased, how his mother wept anew, and how Old Scrooge's face shone with a charitable glow born of a great benevolence of spirit.
In the weeks and months that followed that magical evening, Scrooge was often in the Cratchit home, seated before an honest, cheery fire, sustained with good ale and better company. There were many late night talks between Scrooge and Tim's father, visits for Tim to a jolly great man with side-whiskers and a beard. Life changed for them all with swiftness and efficiency.
Martha, the eldest child, began walking out with Terrence O'Neill, and the dowry that Scrooge provided upon her marriage set them up with a respectable tavern not far from Paddington Station. Belinda, apprenticed to Abigail Sanders, the well-known and prosperous London milliner, was now a partner in the business and had even been to France three times to obtain new embellishments for their sought-after creations. One could always recognize Belinda's stylish bonnets!
Brother Peter still worked as Scrooge's first man of business though Scrooge was no longer found there to demand that the coal scuttle be refilled with a "right good will" or that the baker's lass was "to have a shining shilling for her sweet cakes." Peter, newly wedded to his Janet, maintained the integrity of Scrooge's business interests while Scrooge himself worked closely with the City fathers to administer charitable funds for the relief of London's poor. Scrooge never missed an opportunity to beguile and persuade the bankers to part with a great many farthings to aid the poor. He lived for the fray and fought with twinkling eyes and a kindly heart. These arrangements suited both Peter and Scrooge very well.
Younger brother John was apprenticed now to Peter, looking ahead to a greater place in the firm. Anticipating marriage to his Eliza, he worked hard to make his way clear. The youngest daughter, Mary, had just welcomed her second child and lived happily with her minister husband away off in the Yorkshire Dales. Mr. Scrooge had made handsome settlements for her babes so as not to discompose the Reverend Mr. Marchant and his notion of a minister's simple parish life.
Mr. Scrooge had started them all off very well and had seen them prosper and thrive, but it was to Tim himself that Scrooge's greatest benevolence and affection had come, years of expensive medical treatment and increasing health, followed by extensive study at the School of Medicine of the University of Edinburgh.
Scotland had become a second home to Tim from the time he had gone for the lengthy and involved treatments for his back and legs. Dr. Humphrey prescribed the treatments; Scrooge supplied the funds and the morale support. The hospital had become more familiar to Tim than his own home, and the nurses and doctors seemed like another family. He had become entranced with the hospital, the treatment rooms, the nursery and most especially the doctors. Timothy Cratchit, child of poverty and pain, had found, in the rich soil of disease, the bright flower of healing.
Right from the beginning he had begun to form a great desire to help others, to ease and heal and mend others like himself, especially children. Uncle Ebenezer, as they came to call him, noticed Tim's increasing vigor, both physical and mental, and decided that when the time came, Tim should study with Dr. Humphrey if he wished. That bond would nurture Tim's gift, spent in the service of the poor, healing the children. Tim sighed. "How kind dear Uncle Ebenezer was to us all. How richly he gave and how richly we were blessed!" he whispered sadly, feeling again his overwhelming loss.
The fire in the room burned low, a clock chimed sweetly, and Tim woke with a start. He had forgotten a dinner engagement last evening with Julianne and her family! What must she think of him? She would understand; she always did. He missed dinner with her at least twice each week, always pleading long hours at Ormond Street or one last patient. She would smile, pat his cheek and inquire about his most recent case. What luck to be engaged to the daughter of a busy doctor! She was an angel with the disposition of a saint and the mind of a politician. How vital their life together would be!
He thought of her sweet, smiling face, her russet hair and her violet eyes, the way her dimple showed when she teased him. He could not think of a time when she had not smiled. She was tall and stylish, with a taste for clothes the colors of an autumn forest. She had been educated in France and Austria under the tutelage of great teachers and in glittering salons and had lived in both Scotland and Germany with her doting parents, Dr. and Mrs. Humphrey Nevins, Tim's childhood physician and now professional mentor, recently knighted. She read Plato and Marcus Aurelius, spoke German and French
and Italian, played the pianoforte, could run any establishment and hold her own in a discussion with any of the government ministers who frequented her father's dinner table, and she could often be found helping the nursing sisters at the Foundling's Hospital off Guildford Street. She shared his own passion for reform and she too worked for the children of London's streets.
Tim smiled to himself to think of their initial meeting: she with a great sheaf of red roses in her arms, he wet and cold from an early spring rain. He had knocked on her front door, seeking her father, excited with the findings of a report from the First Food and Drug Act's esteemed panel members. He could not wait to tell Sir Humphrey about the vitriol added to beer, the sand to sugar loaves or the powdered chalk to milk for whiteness. There was so much more to do, but this was a great beginning. He had to discuss it or burst from the effort of bottling up his excitement!
He had stepped through the open door just in time to see Julianne move toward the library with her father's favorite roses just cut from their hothouses. At his step, she had turned to him smiling, then met his eyes. Stillness had settled over the hall. He still had no idea how long they had stood like that in Sir Humphrey's entry hall or how much time had passed before he had responded to the maid's request that he follow her to Sir Humphrey's study. Julianne had taken a deep breath, requested that he follow her instead and then had walked beside him, asking his name and which hospital claimed his time. She had smiled all the while and had finally handed him a rose for his buttonhole. When she left him, she had said, "I'm Julianne, and I hope you'll visit Papa often." She had opened the door to the study and with a last blinding smile had moved quietly away. Tim's eyes had followed her, his heart close behind.
A long moment, later he was standing in front of Sir Humphrey, papers in hand, completely unaware why he was there at all. He stared blankly at Sir Humphrey, puzzled to see him seated at his desk.
Sir Humphrey himself, one eyebrow raised, smiled broadly and said, "Ah, young Cratchit. Good day. I see you have met our Julianne. You appear mightily preoccupied. Are you ill then? Never fear, Timothy, the symptoms ease with time." His sparkling eyes met Tim's confused ones.
After a time, Tim had smiled back rather sheepishly and said, "Well, sir, I sincerely hope not."
Dr. Humphrey had smiled hugely and held out his hand for the sheaf of papers that Tim had all but forgotten.
"Just as well, I suppose, for no known antidote has ever been found!"
Tim often wondered how it was that he had never met Julianne when he had spent so much time with Sir Humphrey in Edinburgh. He knew she had been in school, but there were the long vacations. Nevertheless, he was grateful for her now, although lately he seemed too preoccupied to spend much time with her. His work kept him bound to the hospital, and his heart compelled him to walk London's worst alleyways, seeking out the pale, sick waifs of the streets.
He knew he could help them; he was eager to ease the burdens of disease and poverty, especially now that Uncle Ebenezer's legacy had been so wholeheartedly given just for such a purpose. Ebenezer had committed his life to the work of charity as staunchly as Tim had committed himself to alleviating the conditions of the poor. He revered Charles West, Edward and William Jenner and Atholl Johnson. He wholeheartedly believed that poor nutrition and poor sanitation were responsible for most of the ill health of the poor and the deaths of countless thousands of children. He must find influential supporters and the means to promote better conditions for these people. Ignorance bred death and deformity, and it must not continue.
Julianne's face seemed to smile at him from the heart of the glowing fire. Julianne. Beautiful Julianne. He missed her graceful movements and her confidence, but most of all, he missed her intelligent understanding and loving smile. Sunshine and moonglow, softness and strength rested in that smile, and his heart thudded strangely in his chest to think she kept it just for him. Next summer she would be his, and she was busy picking out the furnishings for their new home, a gift to them from her parents and uncles.
She always consulted him in the matter of his preferences, both his study and a small consulting room with his laboratory at the back of the garden, to keep the house safe from his experiments, she said. She had even furnished a small but comfortable room for an assistant should he ever have need of one. She cared for him, confided in him, shared her thoughts with him, stimulated his mind and captured his heart. He loved her very dearly and wished with all his heart to spend the rest of his life with her, but there was so much to do, so much to learn and so little time! Always so much to do, always so little time!
His thoughts jumbled, his heart racing, he rose stiffly to put on a heavy woolen cloak. Julianne, he must see Julianne! He put up the fireguard, turned down the lamp and hurried out the door. Downstairs he turned on Swallow Street toward Oxford Street, automatically moving in the direction of Great Ormond Street Hospital. Julianne was forgotten again in the confusion of his mind. He would go again to see the young boy who had been brought in with such terrible burns. He would try to find some way to ease the child's pain. He must find a way! Poverty had marked yet another victim, but it would not take him, not if Timothy Cratchit could help it.
As Julianne's laughing face flitted across his mind, he pushed the vision to the back of his dreams and hurried on into the fog-shrouded night. Somewhere he heard a clock strike the lateness of the hour. Time again, so little time, he thought, so little time. He hunched down into his cloak, his echoing footfalls receding until all was silent, dark and still. An icy mist curled about his figure, clinging ghostly pale, and bitter cold pursued him like the hounds of night. He was soon lost to mortal view, treading inexorably toward Calamity.
CHAPTER 2
THE FIRST SPIRIT
A murky dawn greeted Tim's eyes as he wearily stepped out the front door of Great Ormond Street Hospital many hours later. A gray pall lay over London, and a noxious breeze from the Thames invaded his lungs. Tim lifted his reddened eyes to the street and stretched his arms to release the tension in his shoulders. He heard the chimes of a clock rise to strike mournfully against the heavy, overwhelming bleakness of the sky and return its somber notes to earth.
Time, he thought, as he did so often these days, so little time. His hours at the bedside had been for naught; the child had died, its suffering redeemed. If he could just find the right drugs to make the transfer from life to death more bearable, but even that was not enough! Tim's head drooped with exhaustion, his spirit defeated. The boy's gin-soaked mother had not even realized that her child had died. He had needed twenty long minutes to convince her. The blind despair of the poor was staggering! He must talk to Dr. West and Dr. Jenner.
Tim rocked forward on his feet and staggered to the curb. His head swam, his limbs seemed too light to carry him, and his stomach burned with a bitter gall. He moved slowly in the general direction of his rooms, his limp very evident and his gait uneven. He could not believe that this was what he had studied for, this final act alone. Gray of face, his eyes sooty with shadows, he made his way home slowly. Suddenly, a cheerful voice halted his progress.
"A Merry Christmas to you, sir," a small childish voice sang out, "a very Merry Christmas indeed!" Small, frail and shivering in the chill air, the young boy offered hot punch and a great gap-toothed grin.
Tim, his face unknowingly grim, stopped, leaned forward and took the child's face into his hand, examining him carefully.
"How many days has it been since you've had anything to eat, boy?" he asked gruffly. "Are you ill? Do you hurt anywhere?" His eyes scanned the young face, his hand moving the face from side to side.
The child squirmed a bit, backed away half a pace but stood his ground.
"Three, sir," said the child, "but then I'm right small, and I don't need much, that I don't. And who are you, and what's your right that you'd be asking?" The child's grin remained in place, though his shoulders tensed slightly.
"I'm Mr. Cratchit, a physician at the children's hospital.
Here is sixpence. Buy yourself some something to eat, eat it all before you go home, and don't spend any of it on drink!" For just a moment the boy perceived a softening in the face of the tall, gaunt man before him. The boy held out one hand for the coin and the other to shake the tall man's hand to honor his generosity.
"It's but three days `til Christmas, sir, but I reckon I've had my Christmas right here. This is very handsome of you sir, very handsome. My name's Albert, sir. I'll be at your service anytime you might be needing me. I'm often here near the hospital, and if you're not seeing me, you just ask after Albert Porter, and I'm here quicker than ‘Bob's yer uncle’." He grinned up into the tired eyes.
Tim gravely shook the thin blue hand. "Just eat and be off home with you. Get yourself to where it's a bit warmer, and be sure you eat every bit of that sixpence worth." Tim's mouth smiled, but his eyes were bleak and weary.
"I do thank you, sir, I do indeed. And Merry Christmas to you, a very Merry Christmas!" The young boy scampered away as fast as his feet would take him.
"Merry Christmas?" Tim said, much surprised."Is Christmas upon us already? I was not even aware; I have not the time for it nor the inclination. How foolish to expend so much energy on so little of value. So little time. No time for Christmas shopping, no time to entertain friends, no time for that ride in the country with Julianne. So much to do that really matters; such foolishness to waste my Time. I'm too tired, too empty, too necessary. I shall just go home and try to rest. I have ward rounds again in a few hours." He shook his head, turned and limped slowly away.
Everywhere around him warmly clad shoppers passed, their rosy cheeks and laughing eyes unnoticed. Everywhere there was expectation and anticipation, joy and good cheer; everywhere, that is, except in Tim Cratchit's heart. His steps became mechanical, just fast enough to mitigate the wind, just slow enough to keep him upright, and just one-after-another enough to devour the paces to reach his lodgings. Poor Tim to begrudge the foolish frivolity of the most glorious of seasons!
The Very Name of Christmas Page 2